Britain in the 90s feels much like Britain in the 70s. It is as if the whole economic miracle of Thatcherism was a dream which has largely evaporated. Unemployment is rocketting up again, the national debt growing in billions, businesses going into liquidation daily. Much of Mrs Thatcher's economic legacy has been destroyed by her conservative successors. And as for John Major's classless society, the differential between rich and poor in Britain has never been more evident.

In circumstances when the Labour Party should win an election easily, they are only slightly ahead in the polls. The reason is generally believed to be that Neil Kinnock is not credible as the nation's leader, even though the popularity of the Labour Party is growing, and the 1992 elections are going to be the closest fought for a generation. It seems that the credibility of politicans is lower now than any time in recent memory, and no-one really believes that the political parties can do much to stop the rot. Britain's deepest recession since the 30s seems set to run and run.

As recession has deepened into depression in many of the traditional smoke-stack industries in northern England, daily life has turned into a dismal exercise in killing time. In Manchester, lines of people form to buy bread that would otherwise be sold to pig breeders for fodder. Unemployment among residents of Trinity council estates is close to 80%. Newcastle, which used to be a world leader in shipbuilding, has fallen into its own economic and social ruin. Magnum photographer, Stuart Franklin, a frequent visitor to the industrial north in recent years, toured the areas of northern England and recorded his impressions in this photographic essay of life at the bottom of today's Britain.